Stateroom Tours Series: OH My! I’m In A Mini Suite! And For a Search for the Northern Lights Cruise!

This was a quintessential wanderlist trip if ever there was one – Search For the Northern Lights?! And in a mini suite?! YES please. (The craziest part was the fact that this was a parlay from my casino status match jackpot – here’s more on how I got this comp cruise and the trip report)

Let’s see what the (mini) suite life is like aboard a ship!

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SHIP SPECS

• CRUISE LINE – SHIP: Princess (PCL) – Caribbean Princess / Class: Grand Class
• YEARS OF SERVICE INFO: Built/launched: 2004 Last Refurbished: *2022 but did undergo a Dry Dock Refresh in 2024 (a week after my cruise concluded)
• SHIP STATS: The Caribbean Princess is 952 feet (289.9 meters) long, 113K ton cruise ship with 1,571 cabins and suites (including 26 accessible + 83 connecting staterooms). Max capacity of 3,766 passengers with a crew of 1,200 people. There are 19 decks in total with 15 that are passenger accessible and 9 decks that have cabins on this ship

CARIBBEAN PRINCESS MINI SUITE CABIN TOUR

STATEROOM SIZE / CONFIGURATION

The mini suites on PCL Caribbean Princess are ~323 square feet (30 m²) in total area with the cabin square footage being around 277 (25.7 m²) and balcony square footage measuring around 46 (4.3 m²). To put this into perspective, my interior stateroom on the Enchanted Princess was 175 ft² (16 m²) (here’s my tour and review of that cabin)

Upon entering the mini suite, the bathroom and closet are to the left and this is where you will start to see lots of difference between the mini suite and smaller staterooms – not only is there more space – there’s simply more….here with the additional mirror and storage space (akin to a console table that you would find in many homes’ entryways).

Once you get into the bedroom portion of the mini suite, the two single beds were converted into a queen bed with the two nightstands and lamps to the side of the bed. I like that the nightstands had multiple drawers and an open space plus there were also overhead lights over the bed and throughout the cabin.

The desk area offered more storage that can conveniently work also as a vanity table with the additional lighting and mirror setup.

In many ways, the set up was similar to smaller state rooms including the desk area (and probably very close in size to them if you are only including up to the desk area).

However the sheets were markedly nicer than those in standard rooms as Princess outfits their mini suites with 100% Egyptian cotton linens along with enhanced mattress toppers on the beds.

As you continue into the cabin this is where the differences between a mini suite and smaller staterooms become apparent: there’s a separate seating area with a sofa bed for lounging or for sleeping a third passenger. And even with a side table and another chair, there’s still lots of room and carpet space.

You will find two flat-panel televisions in the mini suite with one angled towards the bed and the other towards the sofa. I forgot to take a separate photo but there is a mini-fridge located in the cabinet underneath the bedroom TV while there was storage space/shelves on the reverse side underneath the other TV.

POWER OUTLETS: There are only two outlets in the room and they are located at the desk area. I was surprised that both outlets were US plugs as opposed to other ships I have been on that are designed for multiple countries so there are European, South American, Asian and US plugs/sockets which equals only one or two of each type. Anyways, if you are traveling with others and/or having many things that you will need to charge, beware of the lack of outlets in the room and plan accordingly.

I didn’t do the greatest job of getting photos of the whole mini suite so including this rendering from Princess as this might help some better visualize the space – especially since I weirdly didn’t take photos of the balcony seating area!

CLOSET CONFIGURATION

BATHROOM SIZE / CONFIGURATION

BATHROOM AMENITIES / PRODUCTS

COMPARISON VS OTHER MINI SUITES ON ENCHANTED PRINCESS

All mini suites have the same interior square footage with nearly identical setups. With the two noticeable differences being that due to cabin configurations, the two twin beds may not convert to a queen size bed in a few. While other mini suites also had a pullman bed to accommodate a 4th passenger.

STATEROOM LOCATION

The cabin was aft and on the Dolphin Deck or Deck 9 – there are only staterooms above and below this one. It was not close to an elevator bank nor to the self service laundry so noise was minimal for a cruise.

MINI SUITE BALCONY

Mini-suites located on the Dolphin Deck have completely uncovered balconies open to view from above – as you can see in the first photo on the left, the balconies over the life boats are those on the Dolphin Deck. The middle and the right photos are from my balcony and show just how exposed the balconies on this deck are (the minisuites are located on the Dolphin/9th Deck and Emerald/8th Deck)

Which can be uncomfortable at times such as the cabin above could and did look straight down onto my balcony but luckily they were a super sweet couple AND one of the cabin stewards ended up dumping water on me a couple of times during the cruise!

But for this cruise, that was all balanced out by being able to chase the Northern Lights from the comfort of my own balcony and being able to look upwards without obstruction for the clearest Aurora I have ever seen – while they are often only visible through a camera/phone lens, I was able to watch this green one dance around with my naked eyes and it was this bright and vibrant!

It was priceless to be able to just pull on my boots and throw on a jacket and be able to capture the Aurora Borealis ON A MOVING SHIP! We weren’t as lucky on land but I was able to clearly see the Northern lights on four different evenings from my mini suite <3

OVERALL RATING OF STATEROOM

Couple of things that should be acknowledged – one is that I spent a LOT more time in my cabin than I typically would on a cruise as the ship had a norovirus outbreak on the previous sailing and there was likely another one during my sailing sooo I was hiding out a lot plus I spent a lot of evenings watching or waiting for the Aurora from my balcony (vs other cruises when I would be out and about)

And then there was the issue that the plumbing was never fixed (and I hope it was addressed but I am not even sure of that) during my cruise. This is one of those things that you don’t notice in everyday life (or hopefully on vacation) but when it doesn’t work, it complicates your life in such a weirdly impactful way (or maybe that’s me)

My overall rating for the Caribbean Princess mini suite stateroom is a 7.6. The rating reflects that this is a fairly mid product all around meaning that it is really just average. A mini suite on any cruise line will give you more room and be more luxurious than an interior or balcony cabin but for this stateroom, there is nothing spectacular or truly special about it to make it standout. While having the completely uncovered balcony was great during the evenings for hunting the Northern lights but proved to be uncomfortable on a few occasions for me. And the plumbing issue (while it’s hopefully resolved now) was an issue during my sailing so it does impact the score a bit.

And here’s where I add my caveat about these reviews, there is an element that makes it a little difficult for me to rate these as I struggle with whether giving this type of assessment is the right thing to do? Should I just do a tour? I decided to go ahead and rate the cabins since there is so much variance between cabins, ships and lines and for many people those differences matter.

And they probably matter for most if they are going to pay for a mini-suite and for a pricey itinerary like this Searching for the Northern Lights one! And with that, I will reiterate that for full disclosure that this was another comp cruise for me and what I paid wasn’t even remotely close to what many paid (here’s what this cruise really cost me)

So do what works for you – if you are driven by itinerary, then choose the stateroom that is in your budget and spring for the excursions (especially if you are in the Nordics!)